September 7, 2016 Comments Off on Bill Cosby in Court, Surviving Sex Trafficking, Cult Survivor Years of Abuse, Seeing and Breaking the Chains: Steps for Recognizing On-Going Abuse and How to Break Free

– Bill Cosby Could Finally Face the Full Force of His Accusers in Court
Prosecutors push for 14 women to be allowed to testify against the comedian.
– Tennessee woman shares harrowing story of surviving sex trafficking
– Cult survivor tells of years of abuse, and urges other victims to speak
– Seeing and Breaking the Chains: Steps for Recognizing On-Going Abuse and How to Break Free by Arauna Morgan – Survivorship Conference 2013Bill Cosby Could Finally Face the Full Force of His Accusers in Court
Prosecutors push for 14 women to be allowed to testify against the comedian.
by Joanna Robinson September 6, 2016
Though Bill Cosby has faced individual women in court accusing him of sexual assault over the years (accusations he’s repeatedly denied), he’s never had to reckon with the sheer volume of those accusations at once. But that could all change next year.
In a pre-trial motion for the criminal trial of Bill Cosby for the alleged rape of former Temple University employee Andrea Constand, the Montgomery County D.A.’s office requested that 13 of the more than 50 women who have come forward to accuse Cosby over the years be allowed to add their testimony to Constand’s in the trial. For the first time and under the public eye, Cosby would have to confront evidence of what the district attorney called “a pattern of serial sexual abuse.” If found guilty, Cosby faces a possible decade behind bars and millions in fines for three counts of second-degree felonies, aggravated indecent assault, against Constand.
No official word yet on whether Judge Steven O’Neill will allow the 13 women to testify against Cosby, but if they do, they’ll have a while to wait. Though the judge asked for a “speedy” and “expeditious” trial, Deadline reports that the case will likely be pushed until June 5, 2017, due, primarily, to scheduling concerns from Cosby’s lawyer Brian McMonagle. But this delay may come as something of a relief to the prosecution who described the task of investigating the accounts of these additional witnesses as “Herculean.”
Despite indicating that there was work still to be done, D.A. Kevin Steele presented a mountain of damning accusations from the 13 women in the pre-trial motion he filed. The document (which you can view in full via Deadline here) goes into unflinching detail about each woman’s accusation in 37 pages of sub-headed lists. The incidents date back to 1964 and allege a ritual abuse of power, age, and gender dynamics and Cosby’s now-infamous alleged preference for immobilizing intoxicants. Though the cases vary somewhat, there is one consistent sentence repeated for each of the 14 accusers, including Constand: “She did not consent to this sexual contact with the defendant….http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/09/bill-cosby-trial-lawyers-accusers-race-card-locationCommonwealth’s Motion to Introduce Evidence of Prior Bad Acts of Defendant – Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs William H. Cosby, Jr.https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/commonwealth_s-motion-on-bill-cosby-wm.pdf

Tennessee woman shares harrowing story of surviving sex trafficking
Samantha Fisher, WKRN Published: September 4, 2016
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Sex trafficking is a terrible reality in Middle Tennessee, and one woman is sharing her story of survival with WAVY News sister station WKRN.
As she clutched a teddy bear, the woman said she is afraid to be identified “because he’s still out there, because I didn’t have the courage to press charges when this all happened.”
She chose to speak with News 2 in hopes that it will help even one victim of trafficking and abuse.
“You are worth saving. You’re worth saving. I was worth saving,” she stressed, speaking out to victims.
She met her trafficker when she was just 15-years-old.
“He did some really bad things,” she explained.
He served prison time but came back into her life when she was 27, now divorced with a young daughter.
She thought he had changed.
“It took me a while to put together that he was drugging my drinks,” she told News 2.
But it did not take long for her to put together why….
She was one of the first to come into the court in February and is now the first graduate.
“I’m not a victim today. I’m a survivor today. I’m a graduate today,” she said proudly. “I have a higher power that didn’t put me through those things, but allowed me to go through them because I was strong enough to survive it. Maybe my story can help that one person break free from whatever it is they are going through….http://wavy.com/2016/09/04/tennessee-woman-shares-harrowing-story-of-surviving-sex-trafficking/Cult survivor tells of years of abuse, and urges other victims to speak
JOHN WEEKES, JACK BARLOW AND ILLYA MCLELLAN September 2 2016
Two former church members, one of whom was sexually abused as a girl, say the organisation they grew up in was a “cult” in which multiple abuses were carried out.
Sophia and her cousin Anna believe the old Commonwealth Covenant Church was as much a cult as any higher-profile religious group such as the Gloriavale community on the West Coast.
Now 36, Sophia – not her real name – says when she first raised sexual abuse allegations in the 1990s, she and her mother were bullied into leaving the church.
Sophia and Anna spent much of their youth in the CCC, based in urban centres, including Lower Hutt.
Jonathan John Edward Belcher, now living in Masterton, was jailed for the offending against Sophia.
This week, he said he had served his time, and was a changed man after undertaking a programme for sex offenders while in prison.
Though a jury found Belcher guilty, and the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court dismissed his appeals, he still accused Sophia of lying.
She believes he is not remorseful, and wants nothing to do with him.
The detective who investigated the case, Miles Horsnell?, said Sophia’s case was one of the most disturbing he worked on.
“How long it went on for and the types of things he did … It was a really bad one.”
Sophia said the secrecy and patriarchal nature of the CCC was a factor in Belcher’s abuse, which began when she was 4.
“He used a lot of religious stuff when he abused me. He used to pray and make me pray.”
A common theme through the abuse, she said, was his making her feel as if she was to blame.
And when she raised allegations years later, she said the church dealt with those claims internally, rather than going to police.
“My mum went out and got a protection order against him. Then we were really bullied because of that.”
The church in the 1980s and 90s was a cloistered, sexist institution, she said.
“We had really strict rules. Boys and girls weren’t allowed to associate. We weren’t allowed to cut our hair. No makeup.
“Women were taught to be subservient … your place was to have babies.
“We didn’t have radio, we didn’t have TV. It was very much like Gloriavale.”
And she said adherents were told going to police was immoral….http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/83820915/cult-survivor-tells-of-years-of-abuse-and-urges-other-victims-to-speak

Seeing and Breaking the Chains: Steps for Recognizing On-Going Abuse and How to Break Free by Arauna Morgan – Survivorship Conference 2013Arauna Morgan, survivor/therapist of generational ritual abuse and mind control. “The Family” cult was Masonic/Luciferian and I was also exposed to programming from those in the military, government and government contractors who had climbed the ranks to be allowed access to special sex slaves. I found freedom.https://survivorship.org/seeing-and-breaking-the-chains-steps-for-recognizing-on-going-abuse-and-how-to-break-free-by-arauna-morgan-survivorship-conference-2013/
Presented at the Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Child Abuse 2013 Conference – Survivors Moving Forward in Oakland, CAArauna Morgan, MA will discuss “Seeing and Breaking the Chains: Steps for Recognizing On-Going Abuse and How to Break Free.” The road to freedom from the cult is long and arduous, but well worth the struggle. Through my own experiences of getting free and through talking with other survivors who have done the same, I find that there are similar stages that we all went through, even though our personal experiences were quite different. One significant barrier that stands out to me, for both therapists and survivors, is thinking that cult contact has stopped when it has only gone to a different level. What I present are the steps to recovery and what those stages look like to friends and therapists and the external changes that happen when freedom is achieved. This is geared for survivors and therapists.

January 29, 2016 Comments Off on Kony’s cannibals: Commander ‘ordered his men to cook and eat captured civilians and use rape to train child fighters in Uganda’, Police drop Kids Company ‘sex abuse’ investigation

describes extreme violence

Kony’s cannibals: Commander ‘ordered his men to cook and eat captured civilians and use rape to train child fighters in Uganda’

Dominic Ongwen, himself a child soldier, ‘turned children into militants’
He was operating as a commander for Joseph Kony’s rebel army
A court today heard he ordered his soldiers to cook and eat human flesh
He appeared at the International Criminal Court to face war crime charges
By Corey Charlton for MailOnline 21 January 2016

A former Lord’s Resistance Army commander ordered his men to cook and eat the flesh of abducted civilians and used rape to turn children into sex slaves or soldiers, a court has heard.

Dominic Ongwen, himself a former child soldier who rose through the ranks of Joseph Kony’s rebel group, is also accused of slaughtering locals in a campaign of terror across Uganda.

Surrendering last January after years on the run as one of the world’s most wanted criminals, he faces 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court….

Prosecutor Ben Gumpert told judges Kony found children easiest to shape by a process of brutalisation into the fighters he needed….

Ongwen, by turns generous and cruel, played a role in this.

Mr Gumpert said: ‘Witnesses tell of how he instructed his personal escorts to administer dreadful beatings and… even, on at least one occasion, to kill, cook and eat civilians who had been abducted in attacks.’….

‘Nursing mothers whose babies slowed up the progress or who simply cried too loudly saw them killed or thrown into the bush and left behind,’ Mr Gumpert said.

A video taken by Ugandan authorities showed thatched huts burned to the ground and abandoned corpses of children in shallow graves in the aftermath of an attack.

More than 130 people – many of them children and babies – died in these attacks and dozens of others were abducted, prosecutors said.

He added that Ongwen played a crucial role in transforming abducted children into soldiers, whom Kony saw as ‘most easily molded into the ruthless killers he needed’.

They were forced to perform ‘individual acts of torture and murder designed to convince recently abducted children that they were so steeped in blood that there could be no acceptance for them back in civilian society,’ Mr Gumpert said….

The LRA is accused of slaughtering more than 100,000 people and abducting 60,000 children in its bloody rebellion against Kampala.

It first emerged in northern Uganda in 1986, where it claimed to fight in the name of the Acholi ethnic group against the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

But over the years it has moved freely across porous regional borders, shifting from Uganda to sow terror in southern Sudan before heading into northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and finally crossing into southeastern Central African Republic in March 2008.

A police investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse linked to failed charity Kids Company has been dropped.

Detectives found no evidence to justify any charges after studying 32 pieces of information or intelligence, Scotland Yard announced.

A spokesman for the Met added: “Nor have we identified any failings by the charity in respect of them carrying out their duty to safeguard children or vulnerable adults.”

The Met launched an inquiry into reports of alleged physical and sexual abuse in July “following the receipt of information from a journalist”….

These reports concerned allegations or information relating to children and staff based at the charity, the force said, adding: “However, the majority were third-party reports which were vague in detail.”

Officers carried out “detailed and extensive inquiries” to establish the veracity of the information, speaking to a number of individuals connected to the charity. No-one was arrested or interviewed under caution in connection with the investigation.

An incident which had previously been investigated by police and resulted in a “male adult service user” of the charity receiving a three-month suspended sentence for assaulting a member of staff was included within the reports.

Bill Cosby was charged on Wednesday with sexually assaulting a woman after plying her with drugs and alcohol in 2004, marking the only criminal case against the once-beloved performer whose father-figure persona has been tainted by dozens of misconduct accusations.

Cosby, 78, walking with a cane and accompanied by two lawyers, appeared for his arraignment hours later at a courthouse in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, where he posted a $1 million bond, turned over his passport and was ordered to avoid any contact with his accuser.

Smiling and politely thanking District Court Judge Elizabeth McHugh at the end of the brief proceeding, Cosby left the courthouse and was driven to a nearby police precinct to be finger-printed and booked.

He emerged from the police station 10 minutes later and was whisked away in the same black sport utility vehicle that had delivered him to the courthouse. He made no statements as a throng of reporters shouted questions at him.

He is due to return to court on Jan. 14 for a preliminary hearing.

The case against Cosby was filed just before the statute of limitations deadline for criminal prosecution was due to lapse in January. The charge stems from allegations leveled by Andrea Constand, who settled a civil case against Cosby for an undisclosed sum in 2006.

“Today, after examination of all the evidence, we are able to seek justice on behalf of the victim,” Kevin Steele, the newly elected district attorney for Montgomery County, told an earlier news conference. Steele made a campaign issue of his intent to prosecute Cosby.

Constand, a former basketball team manager at Temple University in Philadelphia, Cosby’s alma mater, is one of more than 50 women who have publicly accused the star of sexually assaulting them in incidents dating back decades.

(CNN) Japan and South Korea have reached an agreement over the long-standing issue of “comfort women,” a term that describes sex slaves used by the Japanese military during World War II.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said his government will give 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) to a fund to help those who suffered.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said that as long as Tokyo sticks to its side of the deal, Seoul will consider the issue “irreversibly” resolved.

In addition, the two governments “will refrain from criticizing and blaming each other in the international society, including the United Nations,” Yun said at a joint news conference Monday.

Kishida said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “expresses anew his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.”

Abe later stated himself: “I think we did our duty for the current generation by reaching this final and irreversible resolution before the end of the 70th year since the war.”….

But an advocacy group for former comfort women said the deal announced Monday is “a diplomatic humiliation.”

“Although the Japanese government announced that it ‘feels (its) responsibilities,’ the statement lacks the acknowledgment of the fact that the colonial government and its military had committed a systematic crime,” said the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery. “The government had not just been simply involved but actively initiated the activities which were criminal and illegal.”

The group took issue that it did not address the issue of Japanese history textbooks glossing over the scope of the war crimes…..

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the forced recruitment of the “comfort women” was a grave crime against humanity.

“The Chinese side always maintains that the Japanese side should face up to and reflect upon its history of aggression and properly deal with the relevant issue with a sense of responsibility.”